Continuing The Fall

More from the 22 part poem: The Fall. Even as I sit here, having just spoken to my doctor's office, waiting to schedule a fourth surgery to address the on-going problems with my neck. And, eventually, possibly a fifth. The reason for my physical limitations is what I'm addressing so far in the blog, how it felt to live though the injury, the long period of having no idea what was wrong with me, and past the second surgery into the dawn of the third. So much angst! But, hey, the thoughts of a fourteen year-old, even filtered through the eyes of my adult Self, the trauma was still very, very real. Now it's more of a distant happenstance that I don't think about. I'm so busy dealing with the results of the accident, that the original cause has slipped away into antique thoughts. Maybe there's still some words inside me that need expressing on the subject. But, for now, I'll leave this Long Poem to continue to tel the story:

TWELVE: One Hundred Years of War

Winding yarn in my arms
keeps the hours at bay;
casting skeins like nets only
to draw the multi-hued strands
back to my heart.
Gentle inanity to bide my time,
to keep my flinching soul rooted
to a body that rejects it every
strike of the hour.
Day.
Night.
Shifting to the left only to
jerk suddenly backward,
throwing me off balance,
trying to catch me asleep.
Day --
walking through tar and sand
to keep pace with the sun,
I drag my feet forward
refusing to rest, refusing...
Acres of yard piled at my feet
keeps the pain at bay;
a trick good only as long
as it lasts.

THIRTEEN: The Pit

How black can darkness be:
Sun burns my shoulders,
my face
as I in ch my way carefully
along the rim of the Abyss;
one shuffled step after another,
one lonely stride.
Blackness is within me --
I cannot feel the sun.
Heart strikes me down,
dragging at my mind,
biting bits of ice
from my lips,
sucking the frozen emeralds
from my eyes.
How black and emeralds see
the pit,
how deep my ind years to fall.
Sun burns the salt from my skin,
jumps harmlessly from the rim
plummeting downward,
downward to search the
bottomless cavern
from my heart.

FOURTEEN: Pills

Carousels of color
dance in your hand --
blue red yellow white
bullets of comfort
and oblivion,
lockets of salvation,
cages of despair.
Liquid flows from
your empty mouth
more easily than words;
I am deaf as well as blind.
Can't you see my hollowness
resting on the bed?
Can't you hear the hate
in my heart?
Giver of rest and illusion,
you walk these scented halls
in deviant awareness
of nothing but your cause,
your gift of lies.

FIFTEEN: First Cut

The deepest slice
touches my throat
just above my heart;
the incision is a miracle
from which I will never wake.
I know the face of finality
when its icy kiss
brushes my hair;
I will dance with angels
this night --
gladly.
The stench of antique ether clings
to my cells as strongly
as my conviction:
I am determined to die;
evil thoughts washed down
with gulps of filtered air
Valium has claimed and
maimed me;
I float through corridors
the color of mint ice.
I am the walrus...
I am a rock...
I am dying as they
strap me down and
feed me dreams.
Time is nothing of importance here,
it has no power,
no gravity holds it,
no inertia keeps it still.
All is a thick emptiness
as hours increase,
as planets spin,
as surgeons cut the poison
from my throat,
my brain,
my life.
I am determined to die
When I wake
the world is changed;
the sleeper jerks
harshly, rejoining the day.
In my confusion
a new life is born.
I am stunned
when my body revives
long withheld motion.